BIRCWH Scholar is Studying Sex Differences in Autism Spectrum Disorder Symptom Progression and Presentation

Catherine Burrows, PhD, LP, Assistant Professor with the Division of Clinical Behavioral Neuroscience, was recently appointed to the position of a National Institutes of Health K12 Building Interdisciplinary Research Career in Women's Health (BIRCWH) Scholar. With the help of the BIRCWH Scholars program, she will be working on a project focusing on characterizing sex difrerences in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptom presentation and progression. Using research data on younger siblings of children with ASD, which have a higher chance of being diagnosed with ASD down the road, her primary goal for the project includes improving current ASD detection and assessment tools for females by identifying neural biomarkers specific to the female population. If her research helps to identify diagnostic tools for females, this selective monitoring could help to detect autism in girls at a younger age and will help to prevent a missed diagnosis that could be crucial for early intervention. To read more about Dr. Burrows research and her intentions for this project, follow this link.